This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Daisy Waugh used to write a weekly newspaper column from Los Angeles about her attempts to become a Hollywood scriptwriter. Her sixth novel, Honeyville, has just been published by HarperCollins and is a story set in 1913 about a hooker, a mistress and a murder in the tough town of Trinidad, Colorado. Today, Daisy is giving us a little bit of an insight into her writing life.
Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?
I go to my computer as soon as I have the house to myself – i.e. when I have dropped the youngest one at school. I then intend to go for a run, but there’s something about intending to go somewhere else which encourages me to stay put. I usually get quite a lot done, waiting to go for a run. And then… I go for a run! It clears my head and helps me to think. Some of my best ideas have come while I am running. I also do yoga – and I know you’re not supposed to be thinking during yoga but actually I get some fantastic ideas mid contortions. Lately I have made an effort to break up the day with intervals of “social intercourse” i.e., chatting. I am recently emerging from a few years of working much too hard and going slightly balmy as a result.
When you are writing, do you use any celebrities or people you know as inspiration?
Everyone I’ve ever met goes into the mx, really. I don’t generally have a specific person in mind, or not consciously – unless of course the character I am a writing about was once an actual person, as they can are in my recent novels, which are historical, and set around real events.
What is your favourite Women’s Fiction book of all time and why?
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. I don’t think it had much of an impact here in the UK though it did well in the US. It’s not terrifically deep or terrifically anything flamboyant – it’s just a lovely story, beautifully told. She’s a fantastically clean and unpretentious writer, and there is something so light about the way she writes about magic in our ordinary lives that it set my imagination on fire, and I have really looked back!
What is your writing process? Do you plan first or dive in? How many drafts do you do?
I plan a great deal – although less than I did. Too much, and it can squeeze the joy out of writing it – too little, and the thing gets flabby. I write numerous drafts. I love editing my own work and never tire of trying to improve on it.
What was your journey to being a published author?
I have been with HarperCollins for some time now, having published I think about six novels with them.
Before that I was published by various others . I have been writing fiction since I could hold a pen, really. My first novel is not something I especially proud of. I was very young when it came out.What do you think is the biggest myth about being a novelist?
That it’s easy. It really isn’t. And if you’re not careful it can be horribly lonesome. Also, actually, that novels might somehow ever write themselves! Every novel, good or bad, requires its writer to have sat alone in a room for long. long, long time …
What advice can you give to our readers who want to write a novel of their own?
See answer to question Number 6. And never give up the day job. Writers go in and out of vogue. In any case, as with politicians, people who write about the world ought also to live in it
What are you working on at the moment?
I just sent over a feature film screenplay first draft to my producer this morning… so kind of looking forward to a few day’s break. Although actually I am already half through a new comic novel, set in contemporary London, and in truth I cannot wait to get back to it.
What are your top five writing tips?
Cut, Cut, Cut!
Never show off.
Never forget the reader.
Know where you are headed.
Go easy on the adverbs.
… I could go on for ages. It’s my favourite subject, more or less.
Thanks, Daisy!